If you have ever pondered the mind-body problem or the puzzle surrounding human consciousness, you will love The Mysterious Flame: Conscious Minds in a Material World by British philosopher Colin McGinn. This book was published in 2000 and is one of the best I have read in a long time. McGinn's thesis is that we may be subject to cognitive closure when it comes to comprehending consciousness (like an ant trying to understand the theory of special relativity). In the words of world reknowned psychologist Steven Pinker, he "thinks like a laser and writes like a dream".One of my favorite lines from this book is contained in the final chapter when McGinn observes that: Philosophy is an attempt to overstep our cognitive bounds, a kind of magnificent failure ... In short, what we call "philosophy" is a scientific problem we are constitutionally unequipped to solve.
I found the most enjoyable part of this book to be the chapter entitled Mind Space in which McGinn posits that the mental barrier to our understanding of consciousness lies in the fact that the human brain is hard wired to survive in a spacio-temporal world while our experience of consciousness is essentially non-spatial. Basically, there may be a non-spatial reality (i.e. dimension) of which we are unaware and may be unable to comprehend. Or, explained another way, perhaps we are limited in our present conception of space such that we are unable to comprehend the spatial nature of consciousness.
McGinn does not stop at suggesting that the mind-body problem is insoluble and goes on to make some arresting theoretical suggestions. His speculation surrounding the pre-Big Bang transformation of the non-spatial into spatial will blow your mind.
Regardless of whether you agree or disagree with McGinn, this is candy for the brain. Bravo Professor.
*Note - you will also find The Mysterious Flame on Sam Harris' recommended reading list which is no small compliment.
2 comments:
"Mindfucking: A Critique of Mental Manipulation", by the same author, is likely a much more enjoyable read (although I admit that I have not read "The Mysterious Flame", just some reviews and commentaries on it).
I do like that McGinn writes most of his work for the intelligent, discerning reader as opposed to the professional philosopher or even philosophy student. That gives his work a certain common touch that many other philosophical papers lack.
Some Atheist comedy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_m6qC6FCiY0
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